1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to animation reproduction, and more particularly, to an animation reproducing method and apparatus for generating and reproducing an animation corresponding to a desired motion by blending one or more previously provided animations according to the motion even when the animation representing the desired motion is not previously provided.
2. Description of the Related Art
When a user plays a 3-dimensional (3D) graphic game using a personal computer (PC), animation data is usually prepared in the PC for each model and each motion beforehand. For example, if a motion of a model M having a human shape is controlled by a user on a journey to a specific destination in the game, two kinds of animation data m1 and m2 of the model M may be prepared in the PC beforehand, where m1 is an animation representing a running figure of model M, and m2 is an animation representing a walking figure of model M.
In this case, a user decides what kind of animation data will be reproduced by manipulating keys provided in the PC. For example, if a user instructs the PC to reproduce a running figure m1 of the model M, by manipulating the keys while the animation data of the walking figure m2 is being reproduced, the PC starts to reproduce the animation data of the running figure m1.
When the animation data to be reproduced is changed in the conventional animation reproducing apparatus as described above, a user may visually recognize that the motion of the model M is discontinuous and changes in an unnatural manner. As a result, the conventional animation reproducing apparatus has a problem in that the motion is unnatural when the kind of animation data to be reproduced is changed. Moreover, such a problem becomes more serious as the number of kinds of animation data that have been previously prepared is small.